Latest / Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services / Living Waters of Grace 09.17.25
Transcript
- 0:03This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
- 0:08Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
- 0:12County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
- 0:16continues teaching through God's Word.
- 0:37If anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, he is
- 0:42not in his. So you cannot be a Christian
- 0:44without the Holy Spirit. Some people might say, well,
- 0:48have you received the Holy Spirit since you believe?
- 0:50And we'll read this later on in Acts.
- 0:52Well, I received the Holy Spirit when I got saved.
- 0:55I passed from death to life, and I knew that I wasn't
- 0:58disbelieving something intellectually.
- 1:00I knew something happened to me supernaturally, internally, and
- 1:04I knew that God now dwelt with me and lived with me.
- 1:07The Holy Spirit's presence is like a heartbeat, vital to your
- 1:11life as a Christian. In today's message, Pastor Clark
- 1:14conveys how Scripture declares that without the Spirit of
- 1:17Christ, you cannot belong to Him.
- 1:21You might hear some ask if you've received the Spirit since
- 1:24believing, but you know He entered when you were saved.
- 1:27That moment wasn't just intellectual.
- 1:30It was a supernatural shift moving you from death to life.
- 1:35You felt God's presence dwell within you, transforming you
- 1:39internally. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
- 1:42book of Acts Chapter 2 with today's edition of Living Waters
- 1:46of Grace. And then it says in verse 4 and
- 1:51they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
- 1:55with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
- 2:02Now the Greek word for the idea of tongues.
- 2:07And also in verse 6, we'll get there in a minute when it talks
- 2:10about them hearing the people, hearing these guys and gals
- 2:15speaking in language was from the Greek word where we get our
- 2:20word linguistic, we get our word.
- 2:24I forget the word that slips my mind now, but it's the word that
- 2:27means language. And so this was not babbling.
- 2:32This was not something that was unable to be discerned as far as
- 2:37what it meant as we continue here.
- 2:40This is literally a gift that they were given to proclaim the
- 2:45greatness of God in the midst of all the people that would hear
- 2:49them. This was something too that they
- 2:52weren't doing themselves. It was the Spirit, the Holy
- 2:56Spirit that was giving them this utterance to do this.
- 2:59And verse 5 and there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews,
- 3:03devout men from every nation under heaven.
- 3:06There had to be at least 15 different people groups from
- 3:10various places as far as Iran and Egypt and, and the Roman
- 3:15Empire and, and, and Greece and, and this on and on and on.
- 3:19So there was all these people with these multiple languages
- 3:22at, at this time in Pentecost visiting Jerusalem.
- 3:25And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and
- 3:29they were confused because everyone heard them speak in his
- 3:33own language. OK, this was not in Babel.
- 3:38Like say I'm say I'm Greek and I'm there and I don't understand
- 3:42Hebrew, but I'm part of this crowd and I'm hearing some of
- 3:48these people speaking in fluent Greek.
- 3:52The great acts of God throughout the Old Testament in the Bible,
- 3:57the Testament wasn't written yet.
- 3:58So they would be proclaiming the greatness of God's deliverance
- 4:03from the, the bondage of Egypt and Pharaoh and all the things,
- 4:07the great things that God had done.
- 4:10And someone else would be there and, and, and no Italian or
- 4:14someone else would be there and, and no some other Egyptian
- 4:18language or whatever. So the word I was looking for
- 4:21was dialects. OK, That's the Greek word of
- 4:24that word, language, dialects. So they were speaking in various
- 4:29dialects, OK, at one time, and it's a reversal.
- 4:33What happened at the Tower of Babel when they decided to use
- 4:36one language to build that tower to get up to God and sort of
- 4:40control things was all based on pride.
- 4:43And God had to disperse the crowd by giving them different
- 4:46languages where all of a sudden they couldn't understand one
- 4:49another, right? Well, in this instance, now
- 4:51everybody is understanding the same message given by the Holy
- 4:55Spirit through these various languages.
- 4:58This is the real gift of tongues.
- 5:01I mean, we'll get into other things down the road, but I
- 5:04mean, if I'm going to have a language, a gift to speak in
- 5:08tongues, Lord, give me Italian. I'd like to travel Rome and not
- 5:12have to study and be able to just talk to people and give
- 5:16them the gospel, right, Without having to study, you know, this
- 5:19software, learning how to speak a foreign language.
- 5:22I mean, I took, I took two years of Spanish in high school and I
- 5:26all I can say is like buenas tarde or hostile luego coma, say
- 5:31almost dead. And I know that one.
- 5:34I'd learned how to order breakfast a little bit because
- 5:36one time I had to go to Mexico. So I wanted to know how to order
- 5:39pancakes and panaceas and that kind of stuff.
- 5:43Caliente chocolate. I like that too, you know,
- 5:45Anyway, it's a lot of work to know a language.
- 5:48Well, these people were, I learned it in regard to these
- 5:52languages. It wasn't God was looking down
- 5:54and said, well, you already know Italians, so you're going to
- 5:57proclaim the greatness of God in this language and you're no, it
- 6:01was a supernatural manifestation of languages.
- 6:04I talked to Mike Dawson one time and they're they spent many
- 6:07years in the jungles. They're still there in the
- 6:09jungles of Venezuela with the Anaman Indians.
- 6:13He said, Clark, we prayed many times, Lord, give us a gift to
- 6:16speak this language. It is brutal when you go into a
- 6:19foreign country where there's no language and you have to point
- 6:22at things forever to figure out, does that word mean tree or
- 6:25branch or leaf? I mean, it's, it's, it takes a
- 6:28while to eventually know the language and then to be able to
- 6:32write the language down in the Bible, in the New Testament,
- 6:35translate it. And but he told me one time an
- 6:38interesting story. His father was a very pragmatic
- 6:43man, very balanced in his theology, wasn't flying by the
- 6:48seat of his pants. He knew the word, he knew doctor
- 6:51and he understood what the Bible teaches regarding truth.
- 6:55And one time he was sitting there talking to a witch doctor
- 6:59trying to have a conversation, but there was no conversation
- 7:02because he didn't understand Yanomano and the Yanomano Indian
- 7:06didn't understand him, his language, but they were smiling
- 7:09at each other and talking to each other.
- 7:11Well, lo and behold, years later, when this witch doctor
- 7:15became a Christian, he said, I'll never forget that one time
- 7:18you and I were sitting down there by the river talking, and
- 7:21you were telling me about Jesus. And I understood what you were
- 7:24saying. And he said what he says.
- 7:27Yeah, you were talking to me. The way you were communicating
- 7:31somehow was translated to me in my language, even though you
- 7:35were speaking something different.
- 7:38Now that's only God. It only happened for a little
- 7:41while, a little bit, but it was enough to touch that Indian's
- 7:45heart and the Lord used it. I know missionaries I've talked
- 7:50to for years, it's been years, you guys know, you study
- 7:53language, you know to go to be a missionary.
- 7:56And it wouldn't have been nice if you just would have been
- 7:58given that gift and you can get on the plane the next day after
- 8:00you were ready to go and just go give the gospel.
- 8:03It doesn't work that way for some reason, but nonetheless in
- 8:08Pentecost here, these are literal language languages.
- 8:10This is not Babble. If you would have been there and
- 8:13said, well, these people are drunk and we're going to see
- 8:16what some of the people thought about what was happening here as
- 8:19we study this together. The the crowds response.
- 8:22And when they responded to this, it says in verse 5, and there
- 8:25were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every
- 8:28nation under heaven. So it gives you the idea of all
- 8:31these different people groups. And when this sound occurred,
- 8:33the multitude came together and they were confused because
- 8:37everyone heard them speak in his own language.
- 8:39I mean, that would be wild, wouldn't it, just to be able to
- 8:43hear every language at that particular time being spoken at
- 8:49the same time. And it's only resonating with
- 8:51people who are from that particular people group that
- 8:54would understand. Someone over here is talking
- 8:56Italian, but if I'm Greek, I'm just listening to the guy that's
- 8:59speaking in Greek and I'm hearing what it is he's saying.
- 9:02OK. And so it says in verse 7.
- 9:07Then they were all amazed and they marveled, I should say.
- 9:11So I would be amazed and marveling too.
- 9:13I marvel and amazed reading this and they said to one another,
- 9:18look, are not all those who speak Galileans?
- 9:22I mean, they they only knew like one kind of dialect, the
- 9:25Galileans. And how is it that we hear each
- 9:29in our own language in which we were born?
- 9:32That's the question. How in the world is this
- 9:35happening? It's a miracle, the work of God,
- 9:39the Holy Spirit. Parthians, that's the first
- 9:43people group, and Meese from Persia and Elamites, those
- 9:48dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius in Asia,
- 9:53Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya joining
- 9:57Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews
- 10:02and Proselytites, Cretian and Arabs, We hear them speaking in
- 10:07our own tongues the wonderful works of God.
- 10:13So they were able to witness of their faith in the God of
- 10:21Abraham, Isaac and Jacob biblically through the language
- 10:26to all these people who were in town at Pentecost to celebrate
- 10:30the giving of the law. No one expected this to happen
- 10:34except obviously our faithful God and those He told that this
- 10:39was going to happen and why they had to wait.
- 10:42But the world was not prepared for this at this time, nor were
- 10:45they expecting this. I was listening to someone talk
- 10:50about this particular section of scripture and they said Jesus
- 10:55one time in the scriptures was they, they believe this could
- 10:58have happened by the portico of Solomon with the big pillars
- 11:01where it had a big expanse of, of, of space and cement where
- 11:06people could congregate. And Jesus was over there one
- 11:09time praying and walking around and, and you would have loved to
- 11:13heard the conversation if you could.
- 11:15But you know, he knew he was going to go to the cross and
- 11:18die. He knew he was going to suffer.
- 11:20He knew he was going to raise again from the dead.
- 11:22But he probably walked around that room and that big area of
- 11:27space. And this was praising his
- 11:29father, saying it won't be too long before there'll be 3000
- 11:33people here one day that will get saved by hearing the gospel
- 11:38from the apostle Peter. So they were always and
- 11:43perplexed saying to one another, whatever could this mean?
- 11:47In verse 13, others mocking said they are full of new wine,
- 11:52thinking that obviously they were drunk.
- 11:56Importance of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was the beginning of
- 12:00this promise where Jesus said not only will the Holy Spirit be
- 12:03with you, but He shall be in you.
- 12:06OK Once you become a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit
- 12:12comes to indwell in you. You cannot be a believer without
- 12:16the Holy Spirit. Sometimes people have different
- 12:20positions on these subjects, but they're not found rooted in the
- 12:25teaching of the Scripture. It tells us in Romans 8-9, if
- 12:29anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, He is
- 12:34not His. So you cannot be a Christian
- 12:36without the Holy Spirit. Some people might say, well,
- 12:39have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?
- 12:41And we'll read this later on in Acts.
- 12:44Well, I received the Holy Spirit when I got saved.
- 12:46I passed from death to life. And I knew that I wasn't
- 12:49disbelieving something intellectually.
- 12:51I knew something happened to me supernaturally, internally.
- 12:55And I knew that God now dwelt with me and lived with me.
- 12:58And He promised he would never leave me or forsake me.
- 13:02And now I've been a Christian for many years, and I learn
- 13:05every day my need to continually be filled and influenced and
- 13:09controlled by the Holy Spirit. When I get out of that control
- 13:13of the power of the Holy Spirit, I'm not pleasing the Lord.
- 13:17I want to be filled. I want to be controlled by the
- 13:20Spirit of God so his love flows out of me, His joy, his peace,
- 13:24his long-suffering, his goodness, his meekness, his
- 13:27gentleness, his humility. This is what we need as God's
- 13:31people, to be filled with God's Spirit and not to be filled with
- 13:35ourselves, right? When we're filled with
- 13:37ourselves, it's not a good story, right?
- 13:43But when we're filled with God, it's wonderful because then we
- 13:47can be instruments of his peace to other people.
- 13:51We can all be ministers of the New covenant and bring life to
- 13:55people by the giftings that God has given to each of us.
- 14:00And so when we think about they, they mentioned new wine here
- 14:05and, and Paul uses this illustration in in Ephesians
- 14:11518, he says, do not be drunk with wine.
- 14:14Where's an excess? And some of you have known, you
- 14:18know, you've been inebriated in your life.
- 14:20Hopefully that is not something that's a common occurrence
- 14:23anymore. But have you become a believer?
- 14:25You don't want to be drunk with wine, but you want to be filled
- 14:28with the spirit. But it's not saying you can't
- 14:30have a glass of wine, but it's saying not be under the control
- 14:33and the influence of alcohol. OK.
- 14:36Because when you're under the influence and control of
- 14:39alcohol, you behave differently than whenever, whenever you're
- 14:42influenced by God, right? I'm, I'm not asking you to test
- 14:47that postulate, but it's true. I can tell you from my own
- 14:51experience is a big difference in being filled with God and
- 14:54being filled with alcohol. OK, The dynamics of what comes
- 14:58out of your life is completely opposite opposition.
- 15:01But anyway, do not be drunk with wine.
- 15:03Whereas in excess could be filled with the spirit.
- 15:05So we're commanded to be filled with the spirit.
- 15:09It's not a suggestion. It's not well, a request.
- 15:12Maybe, maybe not I, I, I don't feel like it today.
- 15:15No, we need to be filled with the spirit and the idea is to
- 15:19continually be filled because we leak.
- 15:21We, it isn't like I get filled once I don't need any more power
- 15:24of God's Spirit. I need to be constantly filled.
- 15:28I need to have this thirst for God, this like this morning, I,
- 15:31I was parched and I needed water.
- 15:33Louis gave me some water and, and I, and I know when I need
- 15:36water, I drink it, you know, I need some now.
- 15:39And I want to know when I need to be filled with God's Spirit
- 15:41too. I want to have that evidence
- 15:44that I, I need to be filled. And when do I need to be filled?
- 15:50Whenever I'm in a situation that I can't do anything in my own
- 15:56strength, and that should be every second of my life.
- 16:00I, I'm not filled with the spirit every second of my life,
- 16:03I, I want to be. That's a desire, that's a goal.
- 16:06Maybe as we grow in the grace and the knowledge of God, we're
- 16:09more filled with him and less filled with us, right?
- 16:14But the, there's always test. Everything's a test in life.
- 16:18Am I under God's control today? Am I under God's control of my
- 16:23home and my, my marriage and my relationship with my wife or my,
- 16:28my, my children, my family, my am I under God's control when I
- 16:33preach? When I am I under control of
- 16:36God's Spirit when I'm driving? That's a real one to think
- 16:41about, especially when you see the police with the, the lights
- 16:47on behind you. If I was under the control of
- 16:51the Spirit of God, I wouldn't be speeding, right?
- 16:53Let's be honest, I got pulled over last week 'cause I was
- 16:58speeding. I was praying, Lord, I prayed
- 17:02it. The name I drop here will be of
- 17:05some influence. I know, Officer such and such.
- 17:09OK. He goes back to the car.
- 17:11He probably called him up and said, you know, this character
- 17:14by the name of Clark, you know? But fortunately, he let me go.
- 17:17And I was grateful. But I said, Lord, forgive me for
- 17:20not paying it. I wasn't like, I don't think
- 17:21intentionally wanting to put the pedal to the metal, but I was
- 17:24sort of this daydreaming when I was driving.
- 17:27You ever do that and the next thing you know you're going much
- 17:30faster than you should be and you suffer the consequences.
- 17:33But the the whole idea is this idea of wine influence.
- 17:38They think these guys are drunk. Paul teaches in the book of
- 17:41Ephesians that the influence of alcohol has negative effects
- 17:46when it's controlling us. That why we absolutely need to
- 17:49be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.
- 17:52And so in verse 14 and Peter, he stands up with the 11 I I am
- 17:57encouraged with this and Pastor Lewis, I'm sure is to anybody
- 18:01that's called to preach the gospel.
- 18:05He's calling people that he can work in their lives to perfect
- 18:09them for the work of the ministry.
- 18:11But he never looks down and says well, I'm going to wait till
- 18:14such and such is perfect and then I might use them.
- 18:18We know Peter, shortly before this incident, was denying the
- 18:23Lord right? He denied him three times, and
- 18:27now he's chosen by God, the Holy Spirit, to bring forth the first
- 18:32evangelistic message after this experience of Pentecost.
- 18:40That should really encourage all of us that Peter was used to do
- 18:46something that was remarkable by the work of God's Spirit.
- 18:51So Peter, standing up with the 11, raised his voice and said to
- 18:56them, Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be
- 19:01made known to you, and heed my words, for these are not drunk
- 19:05as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.
- 19:08But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.
- 19:12Now this particular section of Scripture in Joel is beginning
- 19:16to show forth the whole economy of God until the 2nd coming of
- 19:21Christ, when he establishes His Kingdom and the millennial reign
- 19:25in Jerusalem. That's when this section of
- 19:27Scripture will be completely fulfilled at that particular
- 19:30time. But there is indicators here
- 19:32that this is the beginning of this movement of God in the last
- 19:36days. And the last days begin from the
- 19:39day of Pentecost until the day of Christ return.
- 19:42So we've been in the last days for several thousand years.
- 19:45So that's because a lot of stuff's going on right now in
- 19:49the world does not mean literally that tomorrow Jesus is
- 19:53coming. And these are the last days.
- 19:55This last day, phenomena and experience of world insanity and
- 20:00crisis and evil dictators and rulers and sin and all the other
- 20:04things that comprise human existence have begun in Genesis,
- 20:08but in the Church age, they began at Pentecost.
- 20:11The last days before Christ's second coming will be fulfilled
- 20:15at His second coming. And so this is the prophecies
- 20:19that are beginning to be fulfilled.
- 20:21It shall come to pass in the last days, says God.
- 20:24I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
- 20:26Your sons, your daughters shall prophecy.
- 20:28Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall
- 20:31dream dreams. And my men servants, and on my
- 20:34maidservants, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they
- 20:38shall prophecy. And I will show wonders in
- 20:40heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath.
- 20:43Blood and fire and vapour smoke. The sun shall be turned Into
- 20:46Darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the
- 20:49great and awesome day of the Lord.
- 20:51And it shall come to pass that whosoever calls on the name of
- 20:55the Lord shall be saved. And that's the gospel, right?
- 21:00And the, and the ideas of, of prophesying is proclaiming the
- 21:05word of God, speaking forth the truth of God.
- 21:08Men and women can do that equally as God empowers them.
- 21:11You give a witness somewhere, you give a testimony.
- 21:14It isn't foretelling the future per SE.
- 21:17That's a very rare thing because we got the future dictated in
- 21:20this book, Genesis through Revelation.
- 21:22We know what God's going to do and what's going to come to
- 21:24pass. But prophesying is the ability
- 21:27to, you know, exhort people, warn them, edify, build them up
- 21:33and comfort them. That's the real true meaning of
- 21:36prophecy. The apostle Paul said, I wish
- 21:38all of you would. Prophecy meaning that you would
- 21:42in your ministry, warn people, build people up and comfort
- 21:48them. That's something that we should
- 21:50all want to emulate, right? We should all want to have that
- 21:53gift occurring in our lives to be useful to God.
- 21:58Visions and dreams. People have them.
- 22:02Sometimes they're caused by eating too much pizza the night
- 22:06before. But I'm not negating the fact
- 22:09that God can't speak through a dream or a vision.
- 22:13But these things will increase in magnitude during the time of
- 22:19right prior to the the return of Lord.
- 22:21Some of these phenomenas in the heavens haven't occurred yet.
- 22:25Of course, some commentators try to tie these into what happened
- 22:28when Jerusalem was destroyed in 8070.
- 22:31It looked pretty traumatic when Rome sacked the city.
- 22:35But this what is being depicted here and Acts is unlike anything
- 22:40that the world has seen yet. And these signs will be
- 22:43obviously near the end of the Tribulation, right prior to the
- 22:47return of Christ at his second coming, when he establishes His
- 22:51Kingdom and rules and reigns in Jerusalem.
- 22:54And then Peter continues, Men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus
- 22:58of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you, by miracles,
- 23:02wonders, and signs, which God did through him in your midst,
- 23:05as you yourselves also know him, being delivered by the
- 23:09determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have
- 23:13taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom
- 23:17God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was
- 23:21not possible that he should be held by it.
- 23:24For David says concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before
- 23:29my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.
- 23:34Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad.
- 23:37Moreover my flesh also my will rest and hope.
- 23:40For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow
- 23:44your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the
- 23:47ways of life. You will make me full of joy in
- 23:51your presence. Of course, this is the
- 23:53fulfillment of what Christ experienced.
- 23:57Thanks for joining us on this journey through Acts.
- 23:59On today's edition of Living Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark
- 24:03shares that one of the most remarkable things about the book
- 24:06of Acts is how it shows the disciples transformation.
- 24:10The followers of Jesus we meet here are very different from the
- 24:15often confused and fearful disciples in the Gospels.
- 24:19And after Jesus's death and resurrection, and especially
- 24:23through the power of the Holy Spirit, the apostles experienced
- 24:27a profound change in their hearts and boldness.
- 24:31Their faith became unwavering, and they moved forward with
- 24:34courage to spread the gospel despite opposition and hardship.
- 24:39Acts reminds us that the same Spirit who empowered them is at
- 24:43work in US today, shaping our hearts and giving us strength to
- 24:48live boldly for Christ. Living Waters of Grace is a
- 24:52ministry of Calvary Chapel Westmoreland.
- 24:55If you're in the Greensburg, PA area, we invite you to join us
- 24:58this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
- 25:03Unit 6B. Visit calvarychapelonline.com
- 25:07For more information where you can also join our e-mail list,
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- 25:46joined us today in Axe TuneIn again soon for another edition
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